Version: 1:0.0.16+git20110411+8378443-1+b2
Severity: normal

   * What led up to the situation?

I connected an external monitor to my laptop. Machine is a 12" PowerBook
so it is using a mini-dvi to vga adaptor. PB's native resolution is
1024x768. External monitor is iiyama prolite b1906s (I think - the font
isn't very clear - could be 819o6s). Seems to have a resolution of
1280x1024.

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

I connected the external monitor and switched it on. Actually, I
switched it on and then connected it.

   * What was the outcome of this action?

The right half of the external monitor displays an image. Using arandr,
I can position the two monitors as I wish. (This is good because the
default seems to be the laptop in the middle of the external which is
confusing and messy.)

The left half of the external monitor is completely blank. Any way I
configure the screens, whether I change the resolution, rotate or flip
the images - no matter what - the left half is stubbornly blank.

The computer recognises the left half spatially. What I mean by this is
that I can move (and lose) windows, the mouse pointer etc. in the left
half even though I cannot see anything there. But there is no image
displayed there.

The external is using a different background picture from the laptop.
Only the right half of this picture is displayed. That is, it is sized
for the display and aligned correctly in some sense. Just the left half
is missing. (Though when it tried to display part of my top panel,
things didn't look quite aligned but it is hard to tell just what caused
that since half of it was missing.)

The display on the laptop is not affected except in ways expected by the
configuration change.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

Based on past experiments, I expected no output to the external monitor
at all although I did expect the computer to recognise it existed.

What I *hoped* was that 100% of the external monitor would be used for
display. That is what I would expect if everything was working
correctly.

I should say that I think the nouveau project is doing fantastic work.
Before I figured out how to use the nouveau drivers, my graphics were
awful and I kept running out of colours. (No proprietary drivers for
Linux on powerpc even if you want to use them.)